Battle of the Labyrinth

The Battle of the Labyrinth

Percy Jackson isn't expecting freshman orientation to be any fun. But when a mysterious mortal acquaintance appears on campus, followed by demon cheerleaders, things quickly move from bad to worse.

In this fourth installment of the blockbuster series, time is running out as war between the Olympians and the evil Titan lord Kronos draws near. Even the safe haven of Camp Half-Blood grows more vulnerable by the minute as Kronos's army prepares to invade its once impenetrable borders. To stop the invasion, Percy and his demigod friends must set out on a quest through the Labyrinth - a sprawling underground world with stunning surprises at every turn.

Review:

You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze,
The dead, the traitor, and the lost one raise.
You shall rise or fall by the ghost king’s hand,
The Child of Athena’s final stand.
Destroy with a hero’s final breath,
And lose a love to worse than death.

While some authors would find themselves burnt out of ideas after writing four books and become sloppy in their writing, Rick Riordan does the opposite. With the passing of each book he writes, his books keep progressively getting better and better, and The Battle of the Labyrinth is no exception.

The story starts out like usual. Percy is at school, but not long before he is towed away to an urgent meeting at Camp Half-Blood. Once he arrives, the campers explain that they’ve found that Kronos’ troops are planning an attack directly into the center of Camp Half-Blood using the Labyrinth – a magical underground maze – unless Percy, Annabeth, Grover and Tyson manage to stop the invasion.

What’s different about The Battle of the Labyrinth is there’s so much more action and danger here than in any of the previous books. Not only are there monsters at every passing corner of the Labyrinth, but Kronos’ troops are getting closer by the minute.

What’s really great is we finally get to see Annabeth lead a quest. She is such an intelligent and kickass heroine, and I think I’d even go as far as to say she’s my favorite female character of all time – especially because she reminds me of myself in a way. Not to mention that her developing relationship with Percy (PERCABETH ♥♥♥) is by far one of the best parts of the story.

Annabeth glared at me like she was going to punch me. But she did something that surprised me even more…
She kissed me.

A lot of focus is also put on Nico di Angelo, who has become one of my favorite characters in the series. He has such a complexity to him, and his character arc is incredible so far. It’s so sad that he doesn’t feel welcome at Camp Half-Blood View Spoiler »because he’s the son of Hades « Hide Spoiler, but hopefully that will change.

Chop-full of action, humor and budding romance, The Battle of the Labyrinth is everything a fan of the series could have hoped for…and more. Now, where’s the series conclusion?

“I’m calm,” Rachel insisted. “Every time I’m around you, some monsters attack us. What’s to be nervous about?”
“Look,” I said. “I’m sorry about the band room. I hope they didn’t kick you our or anything.”
“Nah. They asked me a lot of questions about you. I played dumb.”
“Was it hard?” Annabeth asked.